Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Here's Lydia's 7 month pictures 1 day late...I hate it when I don't get those pictures taken on the exact day of the month of her birthday. Must be the OCD again. Anyway, Lydia has been kind of sick this last week, not sure what happened. Had a fever for a day and then hasn't really been the same since. Slowly getting better though.I had to lower the crib mattress the other day because I caught her standing up in her crib and I was afraid she would lean over and fall out. So now it's as low as it goes.I had her on the changing table this morning and looked over and it just hit me how big she is. It really makes a mommy sad to see her baby growing up. But I am glad those early months are behind us now, and now the excitement begins!!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Cassidy likes the pool. not loves, but likes. She still will NOT get her hair wet and hates water on her face. We need to get her into some swimming lessons. maybe this winter when there's nothing else to do. That's one nice thing about having an indoor pool in town.

And Lydia couldn't be more serious! She wouldn't crack a smile while she was in there. whatever.

Friday, July 25, 2008

what just happened here? She is starting to pull herself up onto things now! This is the first time I've seen her do it, Nate said he's seen her do it before. And I really hope that gate doesn't give because that is the stairs to the basement right there.

oh, and one more thing: she's started to say mama!! I guess all of those times I've drilled it in her head has payed off! I know for sure cassidy said dada first...na na na na na, Nate!!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Grandpa & Grandma had all of the grandkids over yesterday for the first Cousin Camp! It was so fun for them! Grandma kept all of the kids busy with tons & tons of activities up until the end. Just when I thought we were ready to go home, she brought out another "bag of tricks" :)

Here's Grandpa & Grandma with all of the kids after making their goofy sunglasses...some of them didn't think that was a good idea*******************************************************

catching bugs lasted for hours

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They even made bugs!

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This was the pine cone bird feeder...they spread peanut butter all over pine cones and rolled them in bird seed, then hung with string. Such a neat & easy project!

Friday, July 18, 2008

She's been a little bit of a challenge lately...mainly yesterday. I could tell that she had a bad teething day so that was probably the problem. And I was drained by the time Nate came home. After supper, he took Cassie to a movie and Lydia and I hung out. **don't read the next part if you don't want to get grossed out**** When she had her last bottle before bed (I should mention here that she has a very strong gag reflex and usually throws up if she doesn't like what's in her mouth) anyway, towards the end of the bottle, I burped her and gave her the bottle again to finish. She ended up gagging on the nipple and she threw up the entire bottle on me! That was pretty gross, so I threw her in the tub then put her to bed.I don't know if today will be any better, she's starting to pull herself up onto things and then falls down and usually hits her head. I might have to put the gate up now! Wish me luck!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

seriously, I have not made a better cookie in my life. go now. make these.

White chocolate, chocolate (devil) cookies

1 cup unsalted butter (I use 1/2 applesauce, 1/2 butter)

1 cup white sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Combine the cocoa, flour, and baking soda, gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, fold in white chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until puffy but still soft. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Monday, July 7, 2008

What a busy weekend! It seems we were on the run every day. That is especially hard on Lydia. I have her on such a strict eating schedule, so it's hard to fit it in when we're out somewhere. It's also very hard when we stayed out past our normal bedtime.Thursday night we went to the huge freedom fest in Spring Valley and I caught some pretty cool fireworks pictures. I was bummed at first because I brought my tripod and my lenses but forgot my little clip that attaches my camera to the tripod. But I tried it anyway and rested the camera on the tripod. Most of the pictures turned out good!

Friday (4th) we went to 2 parades. Next year we're going to skip Cherry Grove. It's not as great as it used to be. Stewartville was really good as usual.

Saturday Nate & I went on a (sort of) date. Thanks to Mom & Dad for watching the monsters we got to have some quiet time alone to eat & get some groceries. And we also went to Best Buy. Nate said that might be dangerous, I said we don't have to buy anything. It was still fun to look. But he might have been right...it was a little dangerous...especially without kids because we could actually look around.

Yesterday was church, and then worked on the basement a little. The air started to get super muggy so we turned on the a/c and just hung out the rest of the day.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A few weeks ago you might remember about our little water problem in our basement. Well, we've finally dried out down there and went to work. Here's our basement as of today:

Below: This used to be 2 rooms (as you can see where the wall used to be) (my craft room used to be that room in the back...glad I moved that upstairs last summer!) Now it will be one large space instead of 2 smaller rooms. To the right-where the desk is in back-will be a closet to store all of our junk that we don't want any of you to see when you come over :)So we ended up with a larger mold problem than we thought. We knew there was some down there, but not to the extent of which we found. So we tore out all of the sheet rock that had the mold and it's sitting in the middle of the floor. Most of it was soaking wet!There's a lot of cleaning to do: much of the mold is still down there...on the 2x4's and posts. The next step for us is to seal and fix all of the cracks in the floor and then seal the entire floor with a rubber membrane. Then hopefully we'll be ready to put things back together! It might take a while though. We're planning on doing most of the work ourselves. I'll keep you updated!